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I've got some Y-Cam Homemonitor CCTV cameras, and when purchased these came with "Lifetime 7 day cloud recording", but it seems that Y-Cam have had a change of heart and T&Cs and are withdrawing the 7 day free cloud recording for devices that have been active for more than one year.

This is obvious a significant change in their service proposition and their T&Cs and what they advertised their products to come with.

I guess others might be picking up on this. Do others have any suggestions on whether we should fight this?

I'm sorry you feel this way. Just to clarify that the cost for 7 days cloud storage is £2.99 per month. It is the Y-cam Plus service that is £9.99/month or £99.99/year, but you get a whole host of additional security benefits included such as:

As a comparison, Nest charge £24 per month for 30 days cloud storage for only one camera. ADT charge upwards of £28 per month and tie you into a 3 year contract for a relatively low-tech alarm system. Hopefully this demonstrates that we are not simply trying to extort money from our customers, but instead we always strive to keep our pricing fair and in principle only charge when there is an ongoing cost incurred by us in providing the service.

Above reply was via trust pilot... for my 1* rating. I have written to the ASA too and directly to y-cam and of course our forum.... we need someone big to start pressuring them...ie watchdog or martin lewis etc.

Hello, I am the owner of 3 domestic CCTV cameras sold by Y-Cam Solutions Ltd under their Homemonitor brand. The products were purchased through Amazon UK, and Y-Cam were on the face of it a trusted brand. In an increasingly crowded market of domestic CCTV, Y-Cam devices unique selling point and their main route to market was that their cameras came with a free cloud-based recording service.

Their products were more expensive than their competitors, but this was due to the added feature of the cloud based recording, they clearly advertised that they came 7 days free cloud recording in online reviews, on Amazon, on their packaging and documentation, and didn't state any limitations. There was an optional upgrade to increase your recording capacity from 7 days to 30 days (Y-Cam Plus), and the product came with a one month free trial of the 30 day service.

Last week it appears that Y-Cam Solutions Ltd no longer wishes to offer the free cloud based backup and wishes to charge £2.99 per month per camera to maintain this service. If we do not elect to pay this subscription then the cameras become stream only, and for me this will will be a significant change and departure from their advertised and marketed purpose, and the cameras will be no longer fit for purpose.
I query whether Y-Cam Solutions Ltd have the right to do this based upon the absence of details in their terms about the specifics of the free cloud recording service and the way they have marketed their products.

Interestingly, on the Y-Cam website, their own blog says, in reference to the launch of their Evo camera "...Packed with features you!!!8217;d expect from Y-cam such as 7 days free cloud storage forever, motion activation..."

Their current Legal page does indicate that the free cloud recording service stops on 30th November 2017. You can see this in the section "Website & Terms and conditions of Sale", point 2.9

However, previous versions of their Legal Page did not make any specific reference to conditions relating to the free cloud recording service, but just referred to the Y-Cam Plus subscription you could take out if you wished to maintain 30 days of recordings beyond the initial trial that came with devices.

My boxes were not as explicit, but clearly show that they both came with 7 days recording with no subscription.

HomeMonitorHD

HomeMonitor Weatherproof HD Pro

Inside the box, there were no Terms and Conditions served. However you would have accepted the current Terms and Conditions in force on the website at the time you created the account for your first camera.

Having a look at the Getting Started guide of my HomeMonitorHD

It clearly states that my Online Account includes "Free online secure storage". The * on the top of this section has the following words at the bottom of the page "Features may change occasionally as service improves, visit http://www.homemonitor.me for up-to-date account features". So granted that things might change - and they did - they introduced Location awareness. But even here the wording infers that the service should only improve, not get worse or be withdrawn.

The outdoor camera represented the information differently but without any caveats.

I've made a little google photos album with more images of the boxes and getting started guides I have.

Hi all..
Advertising Standards Authority have received my case and have assigned a case number and are looking into....
Could be uo to 10 days but will prepare stuff for evidence etc ...
All info greatly received.

I've got a feeling that submitting a claim to MCOL (Money Claim Online, used to be the small claims court) might be the way forward. But what would I claim for....

The cost of the cameras.... not that useful to me.... and I could probably get that back from Amazon.
The cost of the cloud storage - but for how many years?
The cost of competing but equivalent products and their cloud service - for a number years.

So far Amazon have fully refunded one (2015), given me a 30 voucher for an older one (2014).

One I have bought via Amazon market place from Y-cam themselves has not had a reply from my refund request but it was bought 2013.

Why oh why are they charging existing customers, they should of honoured the agreement but charged new purchases a subscription if they can!!!8217;t continue.

Cloud storage for the low quality clips they use can!!!8217;t be that much, how much can people get free now via Dropbox, google drive, one drive, iCloud etc etc? Storage is cheap, customers good will certainly isn!!!8217;t.

Another point if they had reduced the 7days to say 48 hrs or even 24 hrs (it is easy to download clips) I would have understood, but no free storage whatsoever after selling that package with the camera is unacceptable

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